


and I swear I think I knew you before

by smartlike



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Azkaban, Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, In the Veil, Lie Low At Lupin's, M/M, Marauders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-15
Updated: 2013-09-15
Packaged: 2017-12-26 14:34:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/967080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smartlike/pseuds/smartlike
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he first came to Azkaban, Sirius tried to hide small happy moments in each of his worst memories. He used words, imbued them with meaning and intent, like spells, and he hoped that they would trigger happiness somehow. After a few years he realized he didn't even know the right words anymore. A few years more and he laughed at himself, in the new way he had that knew nothing of amusement, at the idea that he ever thought something like words could hold off the Dementors. Now he's forgotten that he ever made the attempt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and I swear I think I knew you before

**Author's Note:**

> A birthday fic for kel.
> 
> Betas by apaintedmaypole, k, and imogen.
> 
> Originally posted at http://www.obsessivetendencies.net/am/

After coming to Azkaban, these are the things he remembers:

The entrance to Azkaban, dark and cold even though the day outside was bright and that must mean sunshine, but in Sirius's memory it's cold, always.

Peter's face, confused even in his moment of triumph, as if he never really believed he could get the better of boys like Potter and Black.

A house burning, a baby crying and Sirius had never properly noticed before that Harry had Lily's green eyes. 

Remus huddled under a blanket that smelled of blood and sex, his lips opening into a gaping wound running perpendicular to the scars dripping down his face and Sirius knows none of those could have been more painful than the icy sharp sound of, "Leave. Get out" echoing in his ears as the door closed.

More blood, as consistent as the cold, splinters in his palm and rocks under his nails as Sirius crawled out of the tunnel, body aching and he didn't try to avoid the tree branches, but even they refused to touch him.

His mother, a smile curling like sulfur, hands on the hips of her pristine robes as she filled the entryway of the Black house with her scorn and her righteous anger, shouting a promise to Sirius's departing back that "disappointing as you are, you're still a Black and eventually you will discover what that means."

When he first came to Azkaban, Sirius tried to hide small happy moments in each of his worst memories. He used words, imbued them with meaning and intent, like spells, and he hoped that they would trigger happiness somehow. After a few years he realized he didn't even know the right words anymore. A few years more and he laughed at himself, in the new way he had that knew nothing of amusement, at the idea that he ever thought something like words could hold off the Dementors. Now he's forgotten that he ever made the attempt.

**

Before coming to Hogwarts, Sirius never thought about time. He understands now that young people don't worry about that kind of thing and that rich, spoiled children in particular don't have any reason to care about time passing. It's all measured out in bells and breaks, lectures and pranks. Not hours and years stretching out, but just simple states of being-- bored, waiting, happy. Sirius remembers how it changed, how he went from a lack of awareness to something else entirely, a memory too complicated to be entirely happy. 

Moony happened then. Sirius realized Remus was something secret and dangerous and to a teen-age Sirius Black, the best kind of excitement was danger. That's when time started to matter. Sirius watched the clock, watched the calendar, most of all he watched the stars and learned the moon.

In Azkaban, Sirius's cell is deep and dark and there are other cells on every side. He hears nothing but pained wails, feels only the chill of the Dementors and sees just far enough in front of his face to watch mold slowly form on brick walls. He lives in his head, the memories like a whip against the inside of his eyes, and he can't even say it's better than the prison. In Azkaban there's no need for time, there's no reason to think about it and he appreciates the twisted irony in the similarities between childhood and prison. 

Only, with every passing month, he can still feel the moon. It waxes and wanes and it's full with such frustrating regularity that Sirius feels it in his heart and he closes his eyes and knows exactly what it looks like on a given night. He counts twelve years by remembered moonlight and even with all the apparent injustice in his life, this is the only thing Sirius bothers to think is unfair. He doesn't think any other prisoner lives with the acrid knowledge of exactly how long they've been here. He wonders if this is why the Dementors seem to spend so much time near his cell, seem to take special pleasure in his agony.

The moon will be full tomorrow and he spits on the floor of his cell, bitter and thick like metal. Sirius curses the moon and curses his memory and, above all, curses the reason he is so tied to this cycle. The chapped edges of his lips crack and the curse is quiet because speech is no longer a habit.

**

Sirius honestly doesn't think any hope could be left. None of what he planned-- a studied, almost painful casualness when asking Fudge for the paper, escaping and finding Peter, protecting James's son-- none of it was about hope. Sirius does want revenge, but he doesn't expect justice or happiness or really even to escape the Kiss. If he knew anything of hope, he would have run from that place ages ago, back when there was something left to take with him.

So when Remus rushes into the Shack, panting slightly around his cry of " _Expelliarmus_!" and Sirius feels a pang somewhere at the base of his neck and lower in his chest, he can't identify it immediately.

There's shouting and Remus looks at him, eyes clear like crystal sugar. Words are exchanged and their embrace is long over before Sirius realizes that he _hopes_ this will work out. He hopes Remus will help him and he hopes Harry will understand and most of all, listening to Remus tell their story, he hopes that he'll remember all the bits of his life the Dementors stole, all the happy memories he knows he had once. This hope carries him along-- over the unrelenting anger at the rat, through a burst of joy at seeing Harry believe him, and past the fear of the wolf. 

Sirius looks at Hogwarts from the window of his new temporary prison and for the first time in his pock-marked memory, he fights the bitterness. When Hermione appears in front of him, he smiles.

It's not until he's flying away, the gash in his shoulder tingling under a healing potion and feathers clutched in dirt-black fingers, that he realizes he hasn't remembered anything. He flies up, towards the moon, and he imagines it's disappointed that he's not with the Dementors now.

"Hateful ball of rock," he shouts at it. Under him, Buckbeak shudders and his wings seem to miss a beat. "Fuck you." Sirius's words are lost in the fog.

**

After the Shack, these are the things he knows:

Harry will never be safe. Dumbledore sighed, heavy yet not tired and recited something seemingly by rote about safety coming once Voldemort is gone and Sirius thought, _same thing_.

James would never have let Sirius go to prison. Dumbledore explained how it happened, a frown creating new wrinkles in his skin, said things like, "choice" and "trust" and faded off with "couldn't have known..." and Sirius thought, _wouldn't_.

Remus loved him. Dumbledore paused as he talked of those last days before they died, the suspicions they'd all had, the mistakes and his lips twisted with uncomfortable knowledge, his voice delicate on Remus's name, but it wasn't an apology, and Sirius thought, _it should be_.

Sirius betrayed Remus. Dumbledore blinked once, open and closed with surprise but his eyes twinkled even as he talked about trust and fear and war and Sirius thought, _excuses_. 

Mother is always right. Dumbledore's fingers were pressed together and he may have been trying for sarcasm when he glanced quickly at the portrait on the wall of Phineas Nigellus and Sirius thought, _bloodlines_.

Sirius deserved to be in prison. Dumbledore looked angry at that, one sharp shake of the head protesting the idea and Sirius thought, _you all sent me there_.

At Hogwarts, Sirius read about tides. He remembers the book, taken from the library to study when he should have been doing Transfiguration homework he couldn't be bothered over. "Water is the only thing that the Earth can't keep hold on as it struggles against the pull of the moon. The water's constant motion defeats the efforts of the planet and the tides are the result." 

Alone and on the run, Sirius sleeps on sand and in hammocks, under thatched grass roofs and always near the ocean. As Padfoot, he runs over dunes and shakes the water from his fur. He never cried, not then and he doesn't now, but the ocean leaves salt on his lips as it moves with the moon. 

**

Letters come even though most owls can't find him, there are a few that can and they show up, drop the parchment and avoid getting too close to the hippogriff. The letters from Harry are answered immediately, handwriting dashed across and sent back directly. Since their brief conversation just after Sirius went into hiding, letters from Dumbledore are few and far between and always cryptic. This makes Sirius curl his lips up and bare his teeth in something like amusement, because if nothing else, it's a familiar frustration. These too are answered as soon as they arrive. The only other letters are from Remus. Sirius can tell those before he's opened one and he sends the owl away, never ready to reply.

This owl is large, one Sirius has never seen before and it waits expectantly. "I've nothing to give," Sirius says. A haughty hoot and then the bird is gone. Sirius shakes his head, hair sticking against the moisture on his skin.

He runs his finger along the roll of parchment, carefully sealed. He pulls at the edges, not quite opening it and he walks to sit against a tree, bark pressing into his back. The parchment opens easily, it's covered in thick black ink-- not as steady as Sirius remembers from school-- and with tiny brown-ish smears at the edges that bring a disorienting flash of fingers covered in chocolate, sweetness on Sirius's tongue. Sirius matches one of his own fingers to one of the prints and covers it completely. He closes his eyes and the sea air tickles his skin.

The letter itself talks of nothing. While he waits for word from Dumbledore, Remus has taken a new position, tutoring and it won't last long, but he does need the money. Sirius thinks he should have arranged for Remus to have had his money, before, in case the worst happened. But, then, after something even worse than the worst did happen, Remus wouldn't have wanted anything of Sirius's anyway. 

Behind the non-descript words on the page, there is a question and Sirius wonders if even Remus knows the answer he wants to hear.

The tide is coming in, higher than usual and when the moon rises it will be full. A Spring Tide, when the moon and the sun are on opposite sides of the world. Sirius bites his lip and thinks of Remus, at school, after, in the Shack. The transformation is still easy to recall, the sound of bones breaking and Remus's pained whimpers in the mornings. The problem is that the happy parts are wrong. Not gone completely like Sirius feared they would be when he was in Azkaban. He's not a confused amnesiac, but instead they're like something he read in a book, maybe took notes on in class. He knows that he was in love with Remus and that Remus loved him, he knows enough unrelated facts about James and Lily and even Snape to fill a text. But they're not really memories, just information and he doesn't feel anything when he thinks about them. 

Sirius folds up the parchment and stands. He stares up at the sky and out at the ocean. Buckbeack wanders over, brushes against Sirius's hand and Sirius wipes his palm across the feathers idly. 

What Sirius needs most isn't his memories back or even his innocence. What he needs is to figure out how to stop himself from hating someone when everything he has to hold onto is harsh and terrible, full of fear and distrust. 

**

Sirius wants to stay with Harry or at least near Harry and he almost fights. A stray dog wandering a Muggle neighborhood wouldn't be terribly suspicious and he glares at Dumbledore, eyes narrowed. The words are on the tip of his tongue and behind those, a plan. He'll go, he'll follow and watch and stop all this bloody waiting and fuck Dumbledore and his careful, hesitant plans. But then.

"Lie low at Lupin's." 

So few words and Sirius wonders if he's being manipulated yet again, hates himself for giving in, but hate isn't anything special or new, so he agrees. Padfoot travels under a sky that's black and heavy with stars. 

Two nights later, he hides Buckbeak in another cave, this one in a forest, and leaves to make the last of the journey on his own. Remus's house is small, white, with a fence all along the perimeter. There are two front windows and one is missing a shutter.

The door is open when he reaches it, Remus's arm stretched across the entrance. Padfoot wags his tail and it brushes against the cloth covering Remus's knee. Remus steps back, takes a long time latching the door so that when he finally turns around, Sirius is human again, bending backwards in a stretch.

"You," Remus's voice is like a scratch in the air and Sirius studies a small cut on his palm. "You made it all right, then?"

Sirius doesn't look up. Nothing has ever been quite as interesting as the place below his first finger where the skin has pulled apart. It's tinged an odd shade of brown and Sirius thinks about infection. Red trickles out and he wonders what the dog stepped on.

"Pa-- Sirius?"

Sirius looks then, tips his head and notices grey hair and deep-set eyes, sallow skin, patched clothes. He nods and presses the cut into his mouth. It stings and he stops himself from licking at it. From where he's standing, Sirius can see eight scars on Remus's skin and he knows without thinking that there are twelve nights until the next full moon. Remus's eyes widen, his fingers flutter in mid-air.

"Yes. All right," Sirius finally answers, the words muffled around his hand.

Remus's fingers on Sirius's wrist are just warmer than expected. His eyes are almost amused. Sirius licks a trace of blood and dirt from his lower lip, watches Remus press his thumb just below the cut, obscuring all the lines on Sirius's skin and Sirius wonders if they even mean anything anymore. 

The smallest brush of Remus's skin over the open cut leaves Sirius trembling, eyes closed. He smells the chocolate and opens his mouth for it before Remus says, "Here, this will help." 

**

After going to Remus, these are the things he feels:

Slow, steady movement, picking up speed, much more than he remembers and it won't last long enough. Just before he combusts from the inside, his brain tricks him and the bed under his back is hard like stone and the air is suddenly made of ice. Remus breathes gently on his neck and doesn't cry out when Sirius's nails push into his skin.

Sharp burn flowing down his throat, slight pain and the taste of cinnamon, giddiness tingling against his frontal lobes and laughter bubbling from his lips. The glass is hard against his fingertips and he only thinks about breaking it for a second. Remus blinks, eyes watering and lets Sirius kiss away the spice from his mouth.

Shock of skin on skin and his flesh stinging as it reddens, his tongue testing sore skin from the inside and it should probably hurt more than it does. Only women have ever slapped him before-- his mother, Lily once, a long list of Ravenclaws with names since forgotten-- and his lips move to apologize before he knows why. Remus looks at his own hand, eyes wide and an earlier smile not yet faded from his face.

Pressure in his bones, tight and uncomfortable, his entire body exhausted and he transforms almost reluctantly. This barn behind the house is full of hay and as he moves it itches at his exposed skin. Remus is still asleep and he reaches across the floor for Sirius with a slight whimper.

Cold air ghosting over skin, goosebumps raising on his shoulders, water sliding down his arm and he doesn't move to wipe it away. The rain is falling faster now, heavier drops that soak his borrowed shirt, but he isn't going in yet. Remus stands in the door, watching and Sirius opens his mouth but can't explain.

In the days after Hogwarts, Remus filled their shared flat with books. Remus tells Sirius how on Saturdays, when there was no work to be done, Remus would stretch across the awful maroon couch and read for hours, the smell of musty paper lingering on his fingers. He says that Sirius acted as though he thought it all terribly dull, but how, curled in their bed, curtains drawn, he'd listen to Remus recount stories. Remus swears that they both liked the Muggle literature best and that Sirius said Remus liked it because he was an absolute girl about poetry and pretty turns of phrase and that Sirius liked it because his Mum had always told him it was all trash. 

Remus always watches Sirius's hands as he talks about the past. Sirius doesn't know what they reveal, so he curls them into fists against Remus's chest and turns his head away. He watches the sky outside the bedroom, the buzz of Remus's voice a gentle pressure against Sirius's pulse. Remus still has all the books and when he leaves to run an errand, Sirius pulls them from the shelves, inhaling the smell of leather. He doesn't read them, just stares at the titles and tries to piece together storylines.

**

Another night, moon almost full and Sirius is lost in the closest thing he has to a good memory.

He can still see James as he sat down in the Gryffindor Common Room and Sirius recalls looking away from the window he'd been staring out of. He scanned the room to be sure no one was listening.

"Well?" James asked and Sirius didn't know if he should answer.

"I think Remus," Sirius said slowly and paused to lick at the roof of his mouth, suddenly dry. "He's a werewolf."

James held his tea cup over his knee and turned to look at the sky. "That complicates things."

Remembering that small moment now, years and what seems an entire universe away, Sirius wraps his hands around the cool porcelain sink and breathes out something like a laugh. "You couldn't even imagine how, Prongs." He's talking to himself, to a dead man, to a friend that only exists in blotted out memories, to the moon hanging in the sky. He listens to himself and he's afraid this stupid house will make him mad in ways the Dementors never imagined.

Sirius stares out, eyes narrowed and the moon blurs until it fills his entire field of vision. "Bloody moon," he curses.

There's a knock of wood against wood and "Nothing bloodier." Remus is breathing loudly and Sirius wonders where he came from.

Sirius shakes his head. "If it weren't for the full moon, I'd be free now. No moon, no transformation, no escaped rat." He doesn't try to keep the bitterness out of his voice. Complicated isn't enough of a word to cover Sirius's constant topsy-turvy emotions. He might have been happy only minutes ago.

Remus's breath hitches, slows. He doesn't say anything.

"If it weren't for the moon, I'd be free or I never would have been in prison because there would have been no argument, no leaving and I would have kept trusting you." Sirius thinks about that, takes a lightning speed tour of all the painful memories he's so familiar with and frowns. "Hell, without the moon do you think we would have even all been friends?" He is looking at the sink now, full of dishes that Molly will click her teeth at if she comes by tomorrow.

Sirius waits, recites the alphabet in French, counts to ten, sings a chorus of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" in his head. Remus is still doing nothing but breathing. Then moving. One hand on Sirius's shoulder and another covering his hand against the sink.

"In Az--" Sirius turns his hand to hold Remus's. "I knew the moon. Every month, every cycle. I could track every day because of it. It probably helped keep me from losing the plot completely, but I didn't care." Remus rests his forehead against the base of Sirius's neck and his breath rustles the hair there. "I didn't want to know how long. I loathed it. I loathed you. I hate you." Remus nods, skin moving against hair and cloth and skin. "I did."

Past and present and future made no difference there and Sirius still hasn't learned to separate them. He's not sure why he's giving himself an excuse.

Outside a cloud passes and there's momentary blackness.

"It's only fair, really," Remus says.

**

Remus doesn't understand at first, Sirius can tell. He doesn't bother to enlighten him, just stares into the fire where Harry isn't anymore, crosses his arms over his chest and sulks.

Remus hovers at the edge of Sirius's vision and rolls his eyes. Sirius refuses to respond. "Sirius, he's a boy. He's idealized his father, of course any bad behavior is a shock."

Sirius huffs out a breath and watches a lock of hair settle back over his left eye.

"Harry doesn't know, Sirius, he wasn't there. James is like a character in a book to him." Remus gestures as if they're still in his house, still surrounded by his books. "This is one bad memory and if he had any more to--" Remus stops and exhales like it causes him physical pain to let the air leave.

Sirius suddenly feels guilty, uncrosses his arms, stands. Remus is staring at him like he might scream, yell, throw a classic Sirius Black fit of temper and Sirius almost hurts with the knowledge that Remus will just take it. He wants to think that the world did that, with discrimination and poverty and all the unfair twists and turns, but the memories Sirius has tell him that it might be his fault.

"Never mind. You're right. He's a boy." Sirius manages a smile and he believes it. The mood swings are probably hell on everyone else, but he feels cheerful so rarely and Remus understands and Sirius doesn't want to waste it. "In fact, I don't even think I'd consider that a bad memory." His voice is teasing and it's sometimes a surprise that he can still manage humor, even of the deep grey variety.

Remus watches him, his eyes clouded over and Sirius reaches out, rests a hand on Remus's shoulder. Remus finally shrugs against Sirius's fingers. "No, no I suppose you wouldn't." Remus pushes Sirius down on the couch and collapses against him. "But then, you're rather still a boy yourself."

They fall asleep there, eventually, curled together, hot and barely bothering to clean up. It's the kind of thing that, if Sirius knew how to feel like a grown up, would make him feel young again. He hopes it works for Remus.

**

After the veil, these are the things he wants:

To die. But that's only once and even then it's just for a moment. It just seems easier to have blackness or a bright light or whatever it is that's truly the end of all this constant thinking. He's sick of all these in-between places.

To help Harry. It's a constant push, behind everything he thinks. Until they leave him-- leave the room-- Sirius can hear Harry talking, shouting, crying and it makes him try to figure out what to do to get back to him. He's trying to leave, but so far there's no door.

To find James. An idea, sudden and sharp like lightning. If he's where the dead end up, if he's dead and he just gives in to it, maybe James will be there and Lily and they can see one another again. He's almost ready to let it happen when he stops because what if they're disappointed?

To talk to Remus. Always, every moment, but so much that he doesn't always notice, like breathing. The moon doesn't seem to exist in this place and Sirius doesn't understand how that's possible or what it means. He's worried that when he finally gets back, Remus will have forgotten everything.

Sirius has been in more prisons than an innocent man should be able to stand. First Azkaban, then Grimauld Place and now on this side of a stupid piece of cloth, in the shivering, flickering light with staccato whispers all around his brain like some dreadful Muggle alarm clock. And still, Sirius sits and wills Harry and Remus to wait for him as Sirius struggles to feel the tide move in his bones. Still, he survives and knows that it all adds up to the fact that he isn't anything like innocent after all.

**

It was a rescue mission, because Harry was in danger and the Death Eaters would kill him if they had to, but still. Still Sirius couldn't help be glad to have a reason to go outside. The wind was warm, but quick and it burned against his skin, rustled the robes he had borrowed from Remus. Sirius fingered a patch on the sleeve and followed the group to The Ministry.

The night before, Remus had returned from a trip, Order business and he couldn't tell Sirius, couldn't share the details. Remus had sat at the table, sipping tea and wincing when it was too hot. "Thank you," he'd said and Sirius had nodded.

He'd been remembering the kitchen in their tiny flat-- smaller, cramped but full of light. Then, years before, Remus had drunk tea as well, had spent time away and refused to talk about it. Last night, Sirius had pressed his hand to his eyelids and had bit into his lip. He had worked to separate the twists of time in his head.

"It's not then, Sirius." Remus's voice had been strong and Sirius had been able to smell tea and Molly's bread sitting on the sideboard. "It's now and I know what you're thinking about, but it's not going to happen like that again."

Sirius had opened his eyes to see Remus smiling. Sirius hadn't seen anything like that since coming back and it'd felt like warm waves breaking on his calves.

He had nodded, smiled. "We won't let it." He'd approached the table, not too fast, and had kneeled in front of Remus's chair. They'd kissed and Sirius had winced at the heat of Remus's mouth before sweeping inside to search out the taste of sugar.

He was still dwelling on that night when they arrived at the Ministry and he brushed against Remus before the fighting started, shot him a smile that to any outsider probably looked crazed.

Sirius was worried, of course, but Harry was there, alive, and Sirius was proud of him-- proud of his resistance and his resilience and even the simple fact of his existence. Sirius watched Harry and he watched Remus and he glared at Bellatrix in her stupid costume. It was exactly what he wanted when he had let himself think about it-- to make a contribution, to do something and to do it with them. Nothing he had experienced had quite been able to lessen his enjoyment of danger. Part of him almost considered that a victory.

He taunted Bella, remembered school, remembered his family. His lips curled down and he thought of Remus, knew that this wasn't a repeat of the time before, none of the suspicion or the questions lurking in the back of his mind, none of the predestined betrayal. Sirius remembered last night again, remembered Remus's hands spreading Sirius out on his mother's floor. He smiled and even as he fell, he realized that what he had was a happy memory.


End file.
